Fayyad considers the emergency government as illegal, two Palestinians were killed

Palestinian finance minister Salam Fayyad considered that the existence of the Palestinian emergency government chaired by Ahmad Qrei after the end of its term of office is "illegal;" while two Palestinians were killed and a third was wounded by the bullets of the occupation forces in Nablus and Toulkarem.

Fayyad expressed regret over the bottleneck that faces the plenary Palestinian government. He said "I consider the term of the provisional government in which I was in, to have expired on November 4th, and in my view, the law is clear and the provisional government should not be extended except through legal measures which were not taken."

Replying a question on whether he boycotts the emergency government, Fayyad said "the case is not a matter of boycotting, the whole matter is that I consider the government's term of office as having expired."

Meantime, the minister of the local rule Jamal al-Shawbaki stressed that work has not resumed since the end of the term of office of the emergency government. He added "the extension for the emergency government is illegal and the legislative council has to decide on that."

Meanwhile, the central committee of the Fatah movement yesterday concluded a new meeting without reaching an agreement between the Palestinian President Yasser Aradat and Ahmad Qrei over the post of the interior ministry in the next government, according to participants.

Qrei wants to appoint Lt. Gen Naser Youssef in this post. A matter which is opposed by President Yasser Arafat since Youssef refused at the beginning of November to take his oath before him with other ministers in the emergency government whose term expired on Tuesday.

Meantime, witnesses said that the Israeli soldiers killed one Palestinian woman during an incursion operation in Nablus. They said that Imtiaz Abu Raas ( 38 year old) was killed by bullets while she was looking from the window of her house, watching soldiers who were chasing a Palestinian and opened fire in Nablus.

Later in the day, witnesses said that the Palestinian forces opened fire at a car carrying Palestinian engineers near Toulkarem and one of them was killed and the other injured.

A Palestinian security source announced that the Palestinian security department arrested in Bethlehem activists planning to carry out suicide operations in Israel. The source said that the Palestinians, suspected to be two suiciders and whose identities were not disclosed, were detained in "recent days" by members of the preventive security. One of them is a member in al-Aqsa group of the Fatah movement and the second is to the Islamic Jihad movement.